


Ray Knows

by jat_sapphire



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e06 Discovered in a Graveyard, First Kiss, M/M, Weekly Obbo Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 09:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18178700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jat_sapphire/pseuds/jat_sapphire
Summary: Bodie regrets what he has not said.





	Ray Knows

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Obbo 342, "Regret," in Livejournal's Tea and Swiss Roll. Some edits since the Livejournal post.

Bodie stood between the pale grey-blue-green walls of Doyle's flat. The flat palm of Doyle's absence, Doyle's coma, pressed him into silence. The feeling was more like horror than grief. The world was wrong.

It was _not possible_ that Doyle ...

that Ray would never hear ...

that Bodie would have to ...

He could not form the thought. Could not even _think_ it.

Couldn't just stand here. He had to find the shooter and take him apart.

And then get back to Ray.

 

When Ray's eyes opened, Bodie could not look into them. _I've never told him that I could fall in, all that green-blue water-fire, drown there._

When he couldn't stop his hand reaching out, he gripped blindly at shoulder, forearm, wrist, and then tore his hand away, closing his fingers on Ray's living warmth. Sometimes he had to stand up, carry the remembered touch to the window, look out at the car park, and steady his breath. The tremours in his hands stopped in a minute or two. Ray didn't seem to notice. _I want to touch you. Never said it._

He'd sworn to himself, if Ray lived, he'd speak all those words that had burned in him unsaid. _Your hair. Your smell, in the morning all shampoo and aftershave, later sweat and curry or fry oil or that miserable coffee at HQ. Beer or wine and other people's smokes from the pub. I want to rub my face all over you and drink it in._

Cowley sent him on jobs, and he could hardly keep his mind on them. At the end of every shift, Bodie went to the hospital, and often as not didn't even see Ray, hardly got a word of news. Resting quietly, they told him, as well as can be expected, improving. Doctor is pleased with him.

 _I was there in the bloody hospital room with him! Like a rock, like a dumb animal!_ Yet whenever he did see Ray again, still hardly able to do more than smile hello, Bodie's heart always misgave him, and again he said nothing. Ragging, gossip, nothing real. If he got close enough to ruffle Doyle's bed-mussed hair, it was the most he did.

One of Cowley's jobs, teamed with Stuart, turned hot, and the King of South London was worse than useless. Stuart held off when Doyle would have moved in, missed his shot where Doyle would have picked off the rifleman, got his shoulder, maybe, and made Cowley happy.

Fortunately, the yobs were also terrible marksmen, so all Bodie had were surface wounds from pieces of brick spraying from the wall. Sticking plasters dotted the side of his face and neck. Doyle snarled when he saw them.

"Didn't you dodge, y'great lug, or were you eyein' up some bird?"

"Stuart's shit backup."

That shut Ray's mouth. He looked down, fidgetting with the sheet.

"Oi." Bodie waited until Ray looked up, eyes shadowed and his lips in a bitter line. "Not your fault."

"Stuck here." The tone was half complaint, half remorse.

"You can't help that."

After a pause, Doyle said, "Come here," holding out one hand.

Helplessly, Bodie left the window and tried to look nonchalant, hitching one hip on the edge of the bed.

Ray stared, then said, "When I get out of here, I'll push Stuart's front teeth down his throat."

"Cowley won't like that."

"I don't like this." Ray's hand wasn't fast or entirely steady, but Bodie waited for the touch on his cheek plaster. "Could've been your whole empty head."

"Nah. Couldn't hit the side of a barn, them."

Both of Ray's hands fisted, one as it fell to his lap, the other in the bedclothes. "I've got to get out of here."

"You will, sunshine, you will." Bodie meant to sound jocular. He couldn't tell from Ray's face whether he had succeeded.

"And then we are going to sit down and you are going to tell me."

"Tell you what?" _Cool, stay cool._

"What you're keeping back. I can see there's ... a knot of words rolling around in there, trying to get out." This touch was unexpected, too sudden to evade, Ray's fingertips brushing Bodie's mouth, and all he could do (sucking them in or kissing them clearly out of the question) was to jerk back as if burnt. 

Ray's lips clamped together unhappily. 

"I'm sorry," Bodie blurted.

Ray leaned back into his pillows. "I'm sure you are," he said in a emotionless voice. "I am too."

This whole visit had gone all to pot. Bodie had no better idea than to get out of it, start again next time.

"Bring you anything?" he asked from the door.

Ray thought about it. "Malt whiskey?" At least he wore that half-grin of his.

"Just don't break it," Bodie answered.

"And waste good liquor? I won't." This grimace was clearly play. "Better buy the good stuff! Be off with you, then."

The truth was, Bodie realised as he drove away from the hospital, that he really did need to say what he had not yet had the bottle to push out of his mouth. Now he was so painfully aware of his own secret that of course Doyle was too, and it had done damage today that could only grow worse. 

He knew a cowardly impulse to wait until Doyle was back in his flat, but knew he could not stay away that long, and could not make conversation without turning it into a dog's dinner like today's.

He skipped a day, then could visit without plasters, the brick damage just scratches now. Ray looked better too, not as greyish-yellow, eyes clear of heavy painkillers, and a determined look on his face that made Bodie glad he had decided to speak. Putting the brown paper bag that held the whiskey on the bedside table, Bodie brought the visitor's chair as close to the bed as possible and took Ray's hand.

"What's this in aid of?" Ray's face twisted with suspicion.

 _Oh, Ray._ Bodie felt the fond smile spread across his face. "Wanted me to talk, didn't you? You're right, it's past time."

The suspicious expression relaxed a bit, and Ray looked curious, but said nothing.

"While you were--" Bodie swallowed, feeling that horror just brushing past, then grabbed at his composure and pushed on, "off with the pixies, weren't you, my son? Cowley sent me to your flat. And I." Just like that, his air was gone, his throat snapped shut, and not a sound would come out of his mouth. He looked around, above Ray's head, over his shoulder, in a kind of panic.

Doyle waited a few moments, then let out a sighing breath. "Yeah," he said. "I know, Bodie."

"So much blood," Bodie whispered. "On that damn rug. In the ambulance. In the operating theatre. And you ..."

"I know," Ray said again.

"I never told you." Bodie's throat felt full of broken glass. "I stood there, all of it in my head. Scared."

"All the time," Ray said with a quirk at one end of his mouth.

"Worse. The worst. Ray." He was holding Ray's hand too tightly, he knew, but he felt locked onto place, every muscle like rock.

Doyle put his other hand on Bodie's arm and shook it a little, not hard enough to move him. "Bodie," he said gently, "you don't need to say it. I know. I see it on your face. In the way you watch my back. The way you make me laugh. You save me every day, Bodie. Don't say anything for me, I don't need it. But you looked like, like words were choking you."

"Not words," Bodie got out.

And then they both sat silently for a while. At last, Ray said, "Show me?" and smiled. He leaned forward, and the hand on Bodie's arm slid up, then cupped his cheek. Ray's lips parted.

Bodie could not have resisted if Cowley and the police were there to watch, arrest and fire him. His mouth touched Ray's and opened, their tongues found each other, and Bodie was lost.

If asked, Bodie would have said he was a snogging expert. Scores of birds and more than one man had been swept away by his technique, and more than once he'd kissed a partner to orgasm. That was a thrill, but he himself had never lost control.

But Ray was kissing him now, Ray alive and passionate, his taste intoxicating. His movements in Bodie's hands and the sounds of pleasure and urgency he made were like fire bursting out from the dryest wood. Bodie burned and shook. He wanted to press Ray into the hospital bed and push in until they shared one skin.

Ray's hands framed his face, but it wasn't to draw him closer but to hold him off. "Bodie," he said when their mouths parted, "God, let me breathe, don't crush me, you lummox--but don't go away!" As Bodie raised himself, thinking to sit up, Ray grabbed his shoulders and held on.

"Madman," Bodie said lovingly. "Make up your so-called mind."

"Oh, it's made up. Long as yours is."

Bodie held Doyle's face, this time, to look at his eyes dilating, his nostrils taking in strong breaths and letting them out, his lips parting, his tongue moistening them. Alive. "Long as we're breathing."

They kissed, gazed, smiled, laughed gently and kissed more.

"Say it," Ray whispered.

"I love you." Bodie could speak the words now. He wanted to shout them, so they echoed down the corridor--open the window so everyone in the car park would hear.

"I know," Ray said.

"Know everything, do you?" asked Bodie.

"About you, yes."

"Not yet, you don't." Bodie pursed his lips in a teasing smile. "You will, though. I'll show you."

Ray nodded, his own smile dawning until it was as bright as Bodie had ever seen it, burning off regrets like fog.


End file.
